INFRASTRUCTURE

NAC Comes Back

BYOD and advanced malware threats help network access control morph from tired technology to mainstream must-have.

Network access control (NAC) was declared dead and buried a few years back, but the endpoint security policy enforcement technology is now enjoying a comeback of sorts -- thanks to the explosion of BYOD in the enterprise and disillusionment with traditional endpoint security solutions like antivirus.

A new report published today by research and marketing firm CyberEdge Group shows that 77 percent of security decision-makers and practitioners plan to deploy NAC as part of their mobile security or already do, and it's one of the top security technologies they plan to buy in the next 12 months, behind next-generation firewalls, network behavioral analysis, big data security analytics, and SIEM.

About one-fifth of the 750 respondents from North America and Europe plan to purchase NAC products, and 64 percent already have them in place, according to Cyberedge's Cyberthreat Defense Report.

"I remember at RSA [Conference] five years ago, every second or third vendor was about NAC. Then there was disillusion ... and now it's risen from the dead and is a mainstream must-have," says Steve Piper, CEO of CyberEdge.